Your business is a shop window. Shot for Parsons Bakers
Most businesses treat photography as an afterthought, something to sort out once the website's built and the branding's decided.
That's backwards.
The photography is often the first thing a potential client actually sees, before they read a word of your copy.
I've spent 25 years as a commercial photographer, and I've learned that the people side of a business, your team, your leadership, your staff, is usually the most under-used marketing asset a company has.
This is what I want to unpack here, specifically for corporate and commercial photography, not the personal branding side; that's a different conversation, covered on my Personal Branding page.
HEADSHOTS, TEAMS & CEO’s
Let's see how your headshot can bring in more customers
A sales team will want to look inviting, friendly, and trustworthy. I'd photograph them:
Smiling, but not so much it looks forced
Smart, on-brand attire
Light background
Close-up, to create connection
Consistency across every image
A management team needs to represent your company's values, in control, ready to engage with problems. For them:
A more serious expression, a half-smile works well
Slightly more casual clothing, letting personality show
Scope to include the workspace in the background
Small details that show their role
CEOs, directors, and owners are the face of the business, so there's more room for a considered, individual approach:
A confident stance
Clothing suited to different contexts they'll need it for
Company branding worked in
A personal touch, an object, a detail, that hints at who they are
Headshots tell a customer who someone is. Candid, in-context photography tells them what it's actually like to work with your business. Worth including alongside the posed shots:
Working: genuine moments at their desk, on a call, focused on the task, not staged concentration
Collaborating: two or three people actually discussing something, a whiteboard, a screen, a document between them
Socialising: team lunches, a coffee break, the small human moments that show your business has a real culture, not just a logo
These don't replace the headshot, they sit alongside it. A website that only shows posed headshots feels static. Mixing in genuine, in-context shots of people working and interacting makes the whole page feel like a real, active business, not a static team page nobody's updated in years.
CORPORATE AND BUSINESS BRANDING PHOTOGRAPHY
As a commercial photographer, you're often working to a brief set by a marketing department, or helping that department work out what imagery actually suits the company. Either way, the images need to match the company's style and speak to the demographic they're trying to reach.
One thing I always do is bring the company's colours into the shoot. It doesn't have to be the primary brand colour, sometimes it's a secondary accent that does more work. When I shot a campaign for W2B, their site is mainly blue, but orange is their accent colour. Working orange into the details, ties, cups, small props, made the images pop against the site once they went live.
Format matters too.
Landscape works well for website headers and banners, though it's a harder format to get right. Square still earns its place, it works equally well on a laptop screen, a phone, and on Instagram.
In their book Fanocracy, David and Reiko Scott make a point worth remembering: the relationship a customer has with your business matters more than what you're actually selling them. A candid, well-taken photo, your team, a small moment, a birthday in the office, does more for that relationship than another polished stock image ever will.
If your business photography is still doing the bare minimum, headshots taken once and never revisited, generic stock images standing in for the real thing, that's exactly the gap worth closing.
Get in touch and let's talk about what your brand actually needs.
